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Use Remote Desktop to access Windows virtual machines running under VmWare Server or MS Virtual Server

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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.

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 Saturday, February 03, 2007
Saturday, February 03, 2007 12:19:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00) (  |  |  )

If it takes too long to redraw the screen when you access your remote virtual machine using VmWare Server Console or Microsoft Virtual Server admin page, consider terminaling into your virtual machines using Remote Desktop or Terminal Server client. UI works as fast as with any "real" remote PC. Entry-level Windows XP Home and Vista Home don't support Remote Desktop, but all Pro, Business, Media Center Edition and other flavors of Windows Vista, XP and 2003 work just fine. One of my co-workers told me Remote Desktop can be used for VmWare Workstation access, but I also tested VmWare Server and Microsoft Virtual Server R2, and those two also do it.

To enable Remote Desktop access a few things usually need to be done:

1. Enable RD access:

2. Ensure your user account is a member of the Administrators group.
3. The password on your user account is not blank.

The only issue I had with this setup was sometimes I couldn't ping the virtual machine due to networking issue. But when that happens all attempts to access that virtual machine over the LAN fail, including NetBIOS file shares, web access - anything.